Organic pays

Citation

(2010), "Organic pays", International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 59 No. 7. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijppm.2010.07959gab.006

Organic pays

Article Type: News From: International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Volume 59, Issue 7

An analysis of Indian farms that practise organic agriculture says that a decline in crop productivity was offset by an increase in farmer income. This report, the first ever assessment by government scientists, will cheer the nascent, export-oriented organic farming market in India.

As a policy, most farm-related research in India is directed towards so-called non-organic techniques of increasing agriculture productivity.

According to the report prepared by researchers at the government’s Indian Institute of Soil Science, Bhopal, nearly 528,171 hectare, or 0.3 percent of India’s arable land, is under organic cultivation. While that puts India far behind Australia – the world’s top organic farming country at 12,294,290 hectare – it also notes that India has the highest number of organic farms – 44,926 as opposed to Australia’s 1,550.

The authors in their survey noted that organic farming, in spite of reducing crop productivity by 9.2 percent, increased farmers’ net profit by 22 percent compared with conventional farming techniques. “This was largely due to availability of premium price (20-40 percent) for certified organic produce and reduction in the cost of cultivation by 11.7 percent,” the authors said.

The scientists used a limited sample of 100 farms, evenly split between organic and non-organic, and have published their findings in the peer-reviewed Indian journal Current Science.